The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-12-12
AD0AB0UTSMALL THINGS
GUIDES WHICH STRAIN AT A GNAT
AND SWALLOW A CAMEL.

!
from Matthew-Ministers Who are
Photographed in the eText-Financiers
Who Come Under the Ban-Thou-
sands Are Hit by the Comparison.
BROOKLYN, Dec 11.-To-night the Rev.
T. Dewitt Talmage, DID, preached at the
Tabernacle, this city, on ''Too Much Ado
About Small Things" His text was: "Ye
blind guides, which strain at a gnat and
swallow camel" Matthew xiii; "a The
eloquent preacher said:
A proverb is compact wisdom, knowledge
in chunks a library in a sentence; the
electricity of many clouds discharged in one
bolt, rivet put through mill race. When
Christ quotes the proverb of the text, He
means to set forth the ludicrous behavior of
those who make great bluster about small
sins and have no appreciation of great ones.
In my text small insect and a large
quadruped are brought into comparison-a
gnat and camel You have in museum
or on the desert seen the latter, great awk-
ward, sprawling creature, with back two
stories high, and stomach having a collec-
ton of reservoirs for desert travel, an ami
NAL forbidden to the Jews as food, and in
many lteratures entitled "the ship of the
desert" The gnat spoken of in the text is
in the grub form. 1t is born in pool or pond
after few weeks becomes chrysalis, and
then after a few days becomes the gnat as
we recognize it. But the insect spoken of
in the text is in its very smallest shape, and
it yet inhabits the water-for my text is a
misprfnt and ought to read ''strain out a
gnat."
My text shows you the prince of inconsis-
tencles. A man after long observation has
formed the suspicion that in cup of water
he S about to drink, there is grub or the
grandparent of a gnat. He goes and gets a
sieve or strainer. He takes the water
and pours it through the sieve in
the broad light. He says, 81
would rather do anything almost
than drink this water until this larva be ex-
tirpated." This water is brought under in
QUESTION, The experiment is successful.
The water r1lshes through sieve and leaves
against the side of the sieve the grub or
gnat. Then the man carefully removes the
insect and drinks the water in placidity.
But gong out one day, and hungry, he de-
YOURS ship of the DESERT" the camel,
which the Jews are forbidden TO eat The
gastronomer has no compunctions of con-
science. He suffers from no indigestion.
He puts the lower jaw under the camel's
forefoot. and his upper jaw over the
hump of the cameps back, and gives
one swallow and the dromedary
disappears forever. He strained out a
gnat, he swallowed a camel.
While Christs audience were vet smiling
at the appositeness and wit of His illIstra-
tion-for smile they did in church, unless
they were too stupid to understond the hy-
perbole-Christ practically said to them
THAT is you" Punctilious about small
things; reckless about affairs of great mag
ffvrIn -V1lNi .xxvffl
surgeons knife more bitterly than the Phar-
isees under Christ's scalpel Of truth As an
anatomist will take human body to pieces
and put them under a miscroscope for ex-
animation, SO Christ finds His way to the
heart of the dead Pharisee, and cuts it out,
and puts it under the glass of inspection for
all generations to examine. Those Phari-
sees thought that Christ would fiatter them
and compliment thom, and how they must
have writhed under the red-hot words as He
said; "Ye fools! ye whited sepulchresl ye
blind guides, which strain out a gnat and
swallow camel
There are in our day great many gnats
strained out and great many camels swal-
lowed, and it is the object of this sermon to
sketch a few persons who are extensively
engaged in that business.
First. | remark that all those ministers
of the Gospel are photographed in the text
who are very scrupulous about the conven-
tionalities of religion, but put no particular
stress upon matters of vast importance
Church services ought to be grave and sol
emn. There is no room for frivolity in re-
Ggious convocation. But there are illus
trations and there are hyperboles like that
of Christ in the text, that will irradiate
with smiles any intelligent auditory. There
are men like those blind guides of the text,
who advocate only those things in religious
service which draw the corners of the
mouth down, and denounce all those things
which have a tendency to draw the corners
of the mouth up, and these men will go TO
installations and to presbyteries, and to
conferences, and to associations, their
pockets full of fine sieves to strain out the
gnats, while in their own churches at home
every Sunday, there are fifty
people sound asleep. They make
their churches great dormitory, and
their somniferous sermons are a cradle, and
the drawled-out hymns II lullaby while
some wakeful soul in pew with her fan
keeps the flies off unconscious persons ap-
proximate Now, | say it is worse to sleep
in church than to smile in church, for the
latter implies at least attention, while the
former implies the Indifference of the
hearers and the stupidity of the speaker. In
old age, or from physical infirmity, or from
long watching with the SICK drowsiness
will sometimes overpower one; but when a
minister of the Gospel looks off upon an
audience and finds healthy and intelligent
people struggling with drowsiness it is
time for him to give out the doxology or
pronounce the behediction. The great fault
of church services to-day is not too much
vivacity, but too much somnolence. The
one is an irritating gnat that may he easily
strained out; the other is a great, sprawling
and sleepy-eyed camel of the dry desert. In
all our Sabbath schools, in all our Bible
classes, in all our pulpits, we need to
brighten up our religious messages with
SUCH Christ-like vivacity as we find in the
text.
/ take down from my library the biog-
raphies of ministers and writers of past
ages, inspired and uninspired, who have
done the most to bring souls TO Jesus Christ,
and find that without a single exception
they consecrated their wit and their humor
TO Christ. Elijah used it when he advised
the Baalites, as they couid not make their
god respond; telling them to call louder as
their god might be sound asleep or gone a
hunting. Job used it when he said to his
self-conceited comforters, ''Wisdom will die
with you" Christ not only used it in the
text, but when He ironically colnplimented
the putrefed Pharisees, saying, 'The whole
need not a physician" and when by one
word He described the cunning of Herod
saying, $50 We, and tell that fox.p Matthew
Henry's commentaries from the first
page TO the last are coruscated with
humor as summer clouds with
heat lightning John Bunyan's writings